It is time to celebrate the complete revolution of our planet around the sun by assigning to it an arbitrary number based on a Western belief system. Happy New Year, humans!

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What you're seeing here is the launch on December 20 of the Ariane rocket from Kourou space center in French Guiana. Its payload was two Eutelsat communications satellites, Hot Bird 9 and W2M. Hot Bird 9 will beam television signals to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa while W2M will service central and eastern Europe as well as Indian Ocean islands.